Brooke's Note: The Fall of 2017 is crackling without much of a spark from the world of robo-advice. That's not because automation or its players are going away. Just the opposite. Yesterday, we showed how far Schwab has come. See: Exploding to near $24 billion* of assets under automation, Schwab creates robo-exec slot and fills it with ex-Betterment unit chief. Today, here's Fidelity putting its best robo-boot forward with its eMoney subsidiary and a focus on RIAs. With other robos-for-RIAs like Jemstep, Trizic, FutureAdvisor and SigFig mostly focused on bank automation, Fidelity may not be late to the party at all. Not that this event got us too far past marketing language. At the very least, AMP is an ingredient that made the eMoney Summit a melting pot. [Fidelity does not have an open invitation RIA custody conference like Schwab, Pershing and TD so in a sense this event helped serve that purpose. ] Addepar's CEO showed up. Schwab sent Jeff Kleintop. TD had a booth. Dogs and cats. Coopetition broke out. Jason Lahita wrote this piece under the difficult circumstance of being under PR contract with eMoney and under the sword of RIABiz editorial demands at the same time. This article is eMoney-friendly but loaded with substantive information. I made a few additions that hopefully eMoney won't blame Jason for. One thing Jason couldn't know when he wrote this piece was just how topical the mere presence of Mike Durbin at the event would prove to be. Right on the event's heels Abby Johnson promoted him to head Fidelity Institutional, which includes far more than RIA and IBD rep custody. Lisa Shidler will have many more details on this development soon.

There’s been a lot of news, but not a lot of information.

This was how Envestnet Inc. and FolioDynamix representatives described the acquisition announced last week at the eMoney Advisor Summit in Scottsdale, Ariz. to information-starved outsiders eager for crumbs.

Guy Kawasaki let the 'enchanted' times roll.

Still, it was hard to miss the new BFFs with their booths literally side by side putting their new union on display for all to see. And despite the newness of the deal and not having a plethora of details, the mood of the executives concerned with the deal was upbeat – they were fully aware of the enormity of the deal in terms of assets and seemed excited about the combined girth of their freshly conjoined businesses. See: Hitting home run, Envestnet buys FolioDynamix creating '$2-trillion' super-platform

And while the news didn’t break from the eMoney Advisor Summit per se, it might as well have. It infused a dose of buzz on day one of the massive conference, 800 attendees strong this year, most of them advisors, and set a high water mark for the Radnor, Pa.-based software firm's annual show.

AMPed up

But eMoney was determined not to be upstaged by other companies' buzz at its own event and brought some rising stars in Vinod Raman [of Fidelity] and its own Jessica Liberi as well as established bright lights like its CEO Ed O'Brien and former CEO Mike Durbin to present a product -- AMP -- presented as ready for prime time after years of dress rehearsals. See: How Fidelity's robo for RIAs 'leapfrogged' rivals -- and why the landing might not stick.

Vinod Raman: AMP can work like a call center, or as a traditional model. It is turn-key.

Much emphasis was placed on how it can help advisors to brand and otherwise market themselves in addition to automating the process of delivering financial advice.

One of AMP's notable features is that it allows clients to invest hypothetically.

“If you look at Betterment and other 'pure' robos, they are all gravitating towards the hybrid model," says Vinod Raman, vice president, digital advice solutions at Fidelity Investments. "And advisors want more technology – so you have that nice confluence of events. AMP fits that model – advisors collaborating with the end client and offering them technology with a human touch. AMP can work like a call center, or as a traditional model. It is turn-key. To the extent that advisors are ready for a technology like this, we’re ready – the design is there, the advisor’s logo. . .we even offer them the marketing tools to brief clients on the ‘why’.”

Of a different color

Industry conferences are curious animals. There are many similarities but each has its own unique attributes. At the eMoney Summit, one advisor asked, rhetorically, at breakfast: “have you ever seen so many women at an industry event?”

One effect of high attendance was the problem of seats. There was standing room only in the main ballroom for every general session presentation.

The event's theme, “plan it forward,” extended through the three-day gathering focused on the value and depth of service that advisors deliver when they offer comprehensive planning to clients. Ron Carson reinforced this. Michael Kitces drove it home.

M&A Sweepstakes

Fidelity and eMoney have hinted for years that more purchases of software firms are on the drawing board and eMoney CEO Ed O’Brien delivered the same message -- laced with a growth rate that suggests one reason he feels content to stay patient. That said, eMoney has not disclosed revenues, which makes the growth-rate repercussions harder to analyze.

Ed O'Brien: We have grown 25% to 30% annually since Fidelity bought us.

Mike Durbin of Fidelity Institutional Product was similarly coy when asked about whether Fidelity had its own plans to buy more firms. When I popped the M&A question after he delivered a reliably eloquent talk about the future of the industry, he spoke with satisfaction about the company he headed for two years -- and left off with a hint about the reason the industry could expect Fidelity to become a serial buyer.

O'Brien walk-by

Signs of firms' ostensible ability to play together in the custodial sandbox were everywhere. Schwab economist Jeff Kleintop offered wisdom to the audience and both Schwab Advisor Services and TD Ameritrade Institutional had a booth in the main corridor.

But anyone who knows this industry knows how keen the competitive instinct is. And anyone looking and listening closely could ascertain a flexing of technology muscles.

Bonhomie aside, O'Brien is clearly intent on competing with planning rivals like MoneyGuidePro and up-and-comers like inStream Solutions but to also build on the aspect that caught the industry's attention as an innovator -- the ability to put data on a dashboard.

While eMoney repeatedly emphasizes its independence from Fidelity, it is also quick to underscore the synergies gained by uniting with Fidelity.

Early risers

In Durbin’s Future of the Industry talk, he referenced some of the challenges advisors face, including the we’re one we're perhaps most familiar with -- cross-generational wealth transfer -- looming larger than others.

Guy Kawasaki delivered a speech on how to “enchant” clients by making a more personal connection. "Enchant" is one of those gushing Silicon Valley words like "delight" that its gurus throw around to suggest that the technology industry reinvented client engagement. Kawasaki was engaging.

Let's play the Feud!

The “FinTech Feud” game show format panel, which I have never seen anything like, pitted three techie execs, including Addepar CEO’s Eric Poirier, just named as RIABiz Power Player, vs. three advisors. Though Poirier kept his comments generic, his presence was notable because his firm has historically not been so publicly chummy with fellow RIA software providers. Addepar formally integrated with eMoney in June and the firm doesn't hold itself out at all as a firm interested in doing financial planning with its own product.

The feud boiled down to who knows clients better. The advisors won -- of course. But not without a valiant late-game rally by the tech guys.

Ron Carson, CEO and founder of Carson Group, had a fireside chat and talked about his upbringing, describing what it felt like to not have money as a family when he was very young, and how he learned to appreciate it, keeping those lessons close at hand as he built his present-day business.

Bill Winterberg’s voice announcing “BabyGotHack” as the winner, in line with the original song’s cadence, is hard to shake from one’s mind, but they impressed him and advisor judges with a simple, yet extremely practical, tool for scraping a wealth of information from a client’s 1040 document, which can be uploaded in seconds from the form.

Joel Bruckenstein was slated to attend but had to tend to his Florida home in the aftermath of Irma.

A previous version of this article tangled AMP, Automated Managed Platform, and ABM, Advisor Branded Marketing, the fault of RIABiz in its editing process.

Stephen Winks said:

October 5, 2017 — 5:35 PM UTC

"you can't do it all by yourself" captures the dilemma of our largest b/ds. It is not just a question of intellectual capital, financial resources but the latitude to execute. Wall Streets opposition to expert fiduciary duty is self defeating.. There is a long standing definition of fiduciary which b/ds do not want to apply to the "retail investor" (you and me). This precludes brokers from achieving professional standing in advisory services which drives exponential growth in the RIA space. The best interest of the investing public (as defined by the evolution of centuries of common law) will prevail whether Wall Street likes it or not. SCW

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